"Hola, Soy Mormon" said my taxi driver the other day.

"Oh wow!", said I.

Today I read suggestions by a Mormon Bishop about how to cure yourself of masturbation. Two of the suggestions were as follows: Tie your hands to the side of the bed was one helpful hint and picture yourself doing the dirty deed in a bath tub of worms while eating worms was the other. The worm one was backed by psychology. He spoke about aversion therapy.

It sounded as though the only Mormons who had this problem were males. I guess if the girls are married by 13, they wouldn't have many years of temptation. It must be a big problem in them there households if a Bishop would write a program about it.

The taxi guy was so cheerful about his declaration that I held back from telling him that because of his dark skin, he can only be a partial, little guy on the Mormon hierarchy. God and Jesus only really love the pure white guys. That must be obvious to the taxi guy, after all these tall white missionaries come down here and don't even have to work, just walk around and talk about their god.

I said recently that I would stop this talk, but, Dios Mio! it just keeps hitting me in the face.

It does make me think. One thought that keeps coming up is how simple life might be if I had a belief system that gave me all the answers, even to questions I didn't know I had - like how to stop masturbation. But at the same time, I know that wouldn't ever work for me. I have to question everything I have to have my own experience. I am not made of the stuff that can believe in things because someone tells me to. Am not, and never have been.

On the other hand, I like a good story. I like a good fairy tale, fable, allegory, myth, legend. Yes I do, and the more far fetched, the greater the challenge to the imagination, the more the soul has to engage to partake, the more I like it. I like Noah's Ark. I like the Angel Gabriel's annunciation. I like those frightening Tibetan demons in the paintings and sculptures. I like Thor and Ulysses and people of the Maize. I am fascinated by Santeria and Holy Communion and Alice in Wonderland. But I couldn't sell any of it as the only way to salvation.

Be Content With What You Have While Working For What You Want.

I don't know whether I can put my full focus on two things at the same time. I am going to try. I feel that my efforts are genuine. (Possibly Self-Myth #?) I love the life I am leading. It is a gorgeous day, couldn't be more perfect. The fountain is going, the flowers are blooming. The internet works right now! I am meeting a young friend (age 11) in a bit. Then I am going to my pool, then to a memorial service, then some poetry under the stars. There will be interesting people in beautiful settings all day. I have my health back All this I can afford easily. I am warm, healthy, content.

At the same time, I feel a big change coming. I am planning to move to Marin, California to be near my daughter and grand daughter. I want to reconnect in my country although I am wary of that because of the social, political and environmental junk that is prevalent. I am stunned when I hear about the cost of everything in CA. I want a place with room for gracious living, writing and painting. I want beauty and great people and some way to contribute to the well being of others. I see absolutely no way for this to happen.

So, while I am content and grateful with my now, I am filling in the colors of the next step. If this is the right move, then some major miracles have to happen. These I anticipate with excitement. Laissez les bon temps rouler!

How do those therapists do it?

Met some lovely people at the bookstore tonite and they ended up inviting me to dinner. We had an absolutely wonderful time. At the moment when we were saying goodnight, I realized that Carol, the new friend, had conducted a skillful interview and knew my whole life. I don't mean dates and info, I mean the real stuff.

When she handed me her card so we could keep in touch her profession was "Mindfulness Based Psychotherapy". I already knew she practiced Buddhism but, wow, she was good. I remarked that I hadn't even known that we were starting therapy when we sat down and how had it happened that I didn't know anything about her and she knew so much about me. She said, "I'll tell you anything you want to know." I found myself asking her how long they had been married and wondering whether this was really what I wanted to know in the few short minutes we had left.

I think, you see, that it was the right question because they were so utterly comfortable with each other. Almost 17 years. Second marriage for both. A fine fit. That Buddhist thing again. They were remarkably present which in turn made me more so. And if that Buddhist thing makes sense, it was our good karma that we met. I needed the updraft and had just watched a video my daughter sent me about being in the "NOW".

This was most perfect for two clear reasons (and probably myriad less obvious ones). I have been watching a dear friend suffer with cancer and having that frustrating feeling that "I wish I could do something to help relieve her suffering, and watching a friend grieve the sudden passing of her husband. I have been working on putting aside my need for action and just being in the space with these friends. I AM HERE. That is my meditation for today.

Simple, simple, simple....hard. That is my cycle with this mindfulness deal.

Slavery/ Presidents Day

"Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World" is the book I am currently reading. Fantastic book, if you can stand to have your eyes opened more. The most amazing thing to me is the amount of disinformation that I learned so well as a good student at good schools.

I have talked before about how shocked I was when visiting the Old North Church in Boston and seeing for the first time the list of founders and making the connection between the founders' former jobs (governor of Havana) and the fortunes these men made. (slavery). Then I looked up some of the ways the fortunes were made 4x in each voyage. Old John Hancock taking timber or Rockport granite to England, the English fabric to West Africa, then Slaves to the Caribbean then rum and sugar to Boston. One cool fortune. This book takes it much deeper. Boat building fortunes from New England, by the same families that tax the trade, collecting metals from South America mined by the slaves to pay for the slaves, making salt cod the food of slaves- another New England fortune, same families selling the cod who sold the ships, sold the slaves, and sold the products of slavery. Throw in a few diamond mines and, oh my God.

I grew up thinking that the North was filled with righteous people who had high standards because of their stand in the Civil War. (What indeed was civil about it?) Schools and text books? Don't the teachers know better? 1/4 of all US presidents had slaves or slave business. One in eight black men are now in prison. Have we made any progress here?

I do like this book, very much. It took off from some characters in Melville's"Benito Cereno" who, it turns out were actual people. When the slave trade got too crowded, these fine New England families opened banks and insurance companies and investment firms. Life goes on. This is a well written book except for the frequent interruptions when I let out a scream. It is as upsetting as  the Monsanto book I spoke a lot about last year, it is almost as upsetting as reading Jeremy Scahill.

I think that I would feel half dead if I didn't try and keep informed. But I do balance things off with Buddhist writings which give me hope for mankind and murder mysteries which I hope are fiction.

Cooling off.

It is only going to be 90 today. Nice breeze. People in Nica are having a bad feeling about the changes in the weather. It has rained a few times this winter  (never before) and the warm weather seems to be coming a month early (never happens). Think of the disruption! The confusion!

I am being silly. But seeing the confusion this little bit of change brings here, I can't imagine the disruption that the weather extremes are bringing to most of the world. Is it possible that people who have always lived without at the bottom rung of the ladder, might now have a lot to teach the rest of the world? For millions of years, people survived without electricity and without cell phones, without supermarkets, without airplanes. No, I am telling the truth.

The people for whom massive disruptions caused by extreme weather don't leave them helpless could be the life coaches of the future. Maybe instead of working so hard to make more energy saving tools, we should think about how to live without cars and without electricity. It kind of freaks me out that we don't have skills to do so.

My cabin in New Hampshire had electricity and running water and flush toilets and we had a car. But we also had a hand pump and a wood lot and nearby horses and food stored in a root cellar. And even in those days before climate change ran amok, we used all our backup stuff from time to time. But how can this work if you live in London or New York or Bangkok? I don't know, but it must be possible.

I am not talking like a survivalist who has his/her energy supplies, food and water for years in cans in the basement, guns to protect it all against the hungry. I am talking about learning to live comfortably with a lot less. I am also not saying that we should all become peasants. I have nothing against a good life. But what I am suggesting is that we maybe learn what is necessary for a good life and cut back a lot on the thousands of extra stuff we 'have to have'. My grandmother was an excellent cook. She had few utensils in her kitchen, almost none of which were electric. It can be done.

Imagine this! When I was a kid, we dried our hair with a towel! And we didn't look unkempt and we didn't run around with wet hair all the time. If everyone threw away their hairdryer that could make an impact on global warming. In fact, it might save some lives down in the mines or near nuclear power plants. I can whip cream with a whisk in almost exactly the same time it takes with an electric device. Why wouldn't I ?

These are simple thoughts and I am sure you have a million more. Maybe we could start small and make a few changes each.

My first 'adult' experience of a snow storm.

This is not about x-rated stuff. Until 1956 or 1957, snowstorms in the hills of Worcester, MA were just plain fun. What else could it be? We sledded, skated, tobogganed, sleigh rode. Our parents joined in, the whole neighborhood joined in. Our family even went skiing up in Vermont.

We froze, we had a house full of radiators with drying steamy wool mittens drying on them. Our gear, by today's standards was total crap. Layers of stuff, mostly not waterproof, bound our actions. We traded and mixed and matched. I remember wearing my fathers huge galoshes stuffed with newspaper when my boots ripped. I had one piece long underwear and had to strip everything off to use the unheated out houses on the ski mountains. My mother embarrassed us all by wearing a foot ball helmet ice skating. She had fallen and gotten a concussion a year previously. It was all good fun. We built bonfires on the pond. We sledded under moving cars until the adults would finally close off the street for sledding.

Then, when I was in sixth grade, my girlfriends and I decided to have a Valentines Day party. We wanted to do it all ourselves. We were in over our heads, but having a blast. It took many of us to produce a heart shaped cake with neon pink frosting. We made little sandwiches and cut off the crust and made them into hearts. We made pink cool aid. We made decorations. We walked to the store again and again...more sprinkles, more crepe paper, more candy.

This was the fifties and we were trying for June Cleaver status. Our parents let us alone. Then, at noon the day before Valentines, we were sent home from school because a blizzard was coming in. By night, the phones were down, the electricity was off and we were each in our own houses with a piece of the party. Our parents wouldn't let us go out to each others homes. You couldn't see two feet ahead.

The storm continued for days. eventually we each, separately, made the decision to eat whatever our piece of the party was. My family had a hundred little sandwiches. I wished we would have had the cake at our house. We experienced a let down that our adults couldn't make better. For years after I would never plan anything important on Valentines Day. My myth became "If there is going to be a blizzard, it will come on February 14."

Beautiful Day!

Last night I made a decision that will be a relief to you and certainly was a relief to me. I decided that I have had enough of trying to figure out, evaluate, make sense of the expat community and the thousands of evangelicals who are coming here. I am done. I am enjoying everything I enjoy and letting go of my self imposed role of political analyst.

I felt a little embarrassed at how consumed I had become. I am satisfied with my thinking process. There is no action I can take to make anything better or easier for anyone. I am done. I felt instantly lighter. Always a good feeling.

Then, This morning who should come to the door but Jehovah Witness guys. I smiled through the iron gate. I said that I was always surprised that people want to convert Christians to Christianity. He said that there was no motivation inside them to convert anyone, they just wanted to spread the good word. I watched them lie. I smiled and said I was a Buddhist. They fled in fear of contamination.

And I still felt all right. I kept my cool. I still might not keep my cool if I see evangelicals taking money from the very poor. But there it is. Change the things I can and let go of the things I can't change.What I can change is my head and my heart.I don't know people's stories. I don't know people's karma. But I do know that once I get going with the critical thoughts, I am inviting the same into my life. Ya Basta! Enough already.

Self Myth #1

"I am very flexible."

On the surface, yes I am. I am easy going. I most often don't sweat the small stuff. I like change. I am interested in the infinite variety of human experience. I like life's ironies. Those remarks are mostly true.

But, if I seek my truth, there are some parts of me that are like steel, not flexible at all. And, as far as I can put it together, I have always been this way. Yesterday. I backed off a scene of injustice and I regretted it all day.

Some mornings and many evenings I take a cup of coffee at a rather expensive place in Granada. I don't remember the name. I call it Lilly's because she was the previous owner. I go there for the breeze and the commanding view of the plaza and the Cathedral. Endless action, endless noise. Yesterday morning a very loud, very red faced American man, a big guy, went off on the waiter. He really blasted the kid. Then the kid got flustered and couldn't do anything right. The guy kept going inside to yell his further complaints and then the complaints got more general. The place sucked. The internet sucked, the coffee sucked. I wanted to step and and tell the guy to cool it, but he really looked like one more thing and he would go postal.

There is a high likelihood that he was from Texas and a high likelihood that he had a gun. I did nothing. The waiter then was defeated. He brought the wrong change. The cashier had included a tip which set the guy off again. I did nothing and I felt badly. This is the place in me that is not usually flexible. I can't stand oppression. I try to be a voice for the voiceless. I should have said something.

I don't want to be flexible when it is a matter of right and wrong, of injustice. There is always a ton of injustice in the world, we know that, but when something is right there, the least I can do is to speak up. Now that I have made this all about me, I have come up with an idea and I will act on it.

This culture has not traditionally been a restaurant culture. After all, it is a peasant culture and one of the poorest countries in the Americas. The wait people are starting to get training at professional courses but many have no clue. I will go and tell this kid a few simple things that will make his work go better, like to bring a spoon when someone orders coffee and sugar. As it is the customer waits for the spoon until the waiter shows up again and then goes back inside to get the spoon and by then the coffee is cool and the mood is sliding into the negative.

What got me going was this idea of our idea of ourselves. I am not that flexible about a lot of things. I realize this now. I have to change the story I tell myself regardless of how others perceive me. 

Religion, politics and economics..the conquest.

One sublimely cool thing about religions through the ages is that they has inspired the greatest art and architecture ever. I do understand that some great stuff has been built outside of religious endeavors. The Great Wall of China, the Hoover Dam are really something. But, think about it. How can these compare with Angkor Wat, Chartres Cathedral, the Egyptian Pyramids, Tikal and on and on? I hope many of you can add so many sites, sculptures, paintings, works of music to this list of inspired creations.

I understand that for a lot of these holy places, their placement has a lot to do with ancient earth wisdom. The choice of locations was not random or based on some whim. There were signs in the heaven and the stars were read, and the ground was prepared through wisdom and prayer. That's how I picture it in an case.

But, then along comes the next best thing and wham, out with the old. Think about the Aztec centers in Mexico that were smashed to bits by the enslaved people who had loved them. Then the new thing, the Catholic Church, built their mighty churches on the same location they had just razed. The Aztec way was damned. It was pagan. They were worshiping  Gods with weird names. They dressed funny. They and their traditions had to die and die they did.  I read in Mexico Profundo that the population of central Mexico went from 18,000,000 to 70,000 in about 10 years. That pagan stuff was bad for your health. Who knows whether or not this is accurate, but I have heard similar numbers from the USA during the European conquest.

But those Catholics! They sure did create some great art, especially in Europe. I am extremely grateful for that. But, here in little Central America and in the USA some bad mojo is at work. These brand new Christian people who are converting Catholics to Christianity (sic!) are against all the art and culture and community and beauty that has developed since the conquest. They drag up Old Testament sayings and twist the New Testament into saying that a picture of a saint is an a sin because anyone looking at it is worshiping a person, not a God. I can't get that. Like, I never worshiped St Francis, but I was inspired to be a better person by stories of his life. Not to mention Buddha.

There are tons of people coming to Nicaragua who wouldn't be caught dead in a Catholic Church. There are thousands of people visiting Central America who have to avoid seeing any Mayan ruins because they are the work of the devil. This crap goes on all over the planet. Why can't we learn to respect others? This new Christian thing is determined to 'save' everybody from themselves. It is the oldest ugly story in the book. If it weren't so disrespectful and damaging it wouldn't be so frightful.

And there is no way, now or ever, that this isn't intimately connected, in fact, motivated by politics and economics.

Whence comes motivation?

In the afternoons at the pool, I am watching a little girl, about three years old, half kill herself learning to swim. She is within days of getting it. She keeps going in too far and too deep and jumping off the side and then struggling to rescue herself again and again. She shrugs off her mother. "I can do it!"

In the same pool, at the same time there are kids resisting their swimming lesson with all their might. They cling to the edge, have to be helped on any foray from the steps, hardly kick, looked pained.

What is going on in the mind of the motivated kid? She sure looks like the motivation comes from herself. Her mother would much rather have her in the class. No bribe there. Watching people over the years has lessened my understanding rather than expanded it.

My son didn't show any particular interest in reading once he learned how until a book contest was announced in his second grade class. I think he read something like 250 books in the contest time. The library has never been so busy, we raced to the used book store in the next town, and I spent a small fortune on index cards. It couldn't have been the prize that got him going. It was a $10 gift certificate at the book store. I had never seen a competitive streak in him. What was the kicker?

One of my daughters showed a similar trait around fifth grade. She wasn't a great speller, but something about this spelling contest at her school got her going. Because she wasn't a natural, she memorized thousands of spellings and made some high rank in the city or state. I couldn't believe it. I am among the world's worst spellers and not that great a memorizing. Where did this come from?

On a much bigger scale, whole countries can show motivation that is incredible. A friend was just at a University in Havana and saw students up at all hours of the day and night copying books that are so scarce that they can't leave the library. They want to learn so badly that they will make tremendous sacrifices for education. In other islands in the same region,  the kids have little or no motivation to go any further than they have to.

Same in the USA. In some areas the drop out rates are shocking, if you can even get hold of them. What kicks in that "I can do it" feeling in some of us and not others? Is it hope? Is it karma? Is it perfect parenting? Is it an ability to fail again and again until they get it right?  Is it a sense of destiny? Is it the food? As usual, I don't know. I do remember one motivating force in my youth. When I had a great teacher, I wanted to make them happy. Was it love?

For God's Sake, Change Your Story!

I met this young woman at a dinner party. Let's call her Heather. Heather is bright and quick to laugh. She had a complicated story of a series of misfortunes that she has endured of late. I have run into her a few times in the past weeks. Each time, some little thing has gone wrong, she couldn't get a taxi, someone didn't show up for an appointment, her email wasn't working. Each time she has said with sighs of defeat, "That is the story of my life right now. Everything is falling apart and nothing works."

After I saw her today, I wished I had run after her and told her that she is creating the story of her life right now. She is repeating the crap and letting it define her. The pile of little events confirming herr defeat is growing. She is the author. I want to tell her to change her story.

I have done this. Fake it until you make it. I understand pain and suffering. We all do. One of the Noble Truths shared by Buddha is that "Life is suffering." We know this. But we also know that "Like attracts like." When you meet someone and give a big smile and say that you feel 'great', positive energy flows to you and from you. It is simple. If you want that flow, start that flow.

I had a friend, Jim Grant who used to give truthful compliments to random people, telling the woman in the toll booth that she had sparkling eyes or a beautiful smile. The person getting the random compliment would light up like a Christmas tree. And it came flooding back to him. I liked to hang with him just to watch him spread his fairy dust.  I know other people who become their shitty story and it becomes their best friend, their most precious possession. They stay there getting their kicks out of their misery. I have been there also.

I understand the therapeutic value in telling your bad story when it can help others see that you have come through something to a new place, a place of change and you are creating a new narrative, changing your destiny. (As in 12 step meetings) This is a gift to others. That's good karma.

I will seek out this woman. I will tell her what I have experienced. I will stop one of my own stupid defeat narratives. Whenever I enter a contest or there is a door prize, the first words from my mouth are "I never win anything." I will try the opposite and see whether or not I can set the laws of attraction into action. Everyone can be our teacher. That's cool.

Dramatic Changes in Nicaragua

The economy is better. In some more remote spots, this is only visible in very small ways. People are a bit rounder. More kids are getting to school. Few people are begging. But, as in other poor countries in Latin America what Guatemalans call the third great invasion is underway. The first great invasion was the Spanish Conquest. Most of you know about that. The civilized, religious, affluent country of Spain conquered in a very short time most of the Americas. Horses, guns, greed, and disease brought ancient civilizations to their knees. Old story.

Then 450 years later came the USA conquest. Guns,power, murderous repression and greed raised their ugly heads again. The effects were devastating. 250,000 Mayans were killed. Nicaragua was devastated, forget about El Salvador. I saw it. I was here for some of it. Young people from my country missed it but it was well documented Seymour Hirsh in the "New Yorker", the movie "Romero", the poetry of Ernesto Cardinal, "I Rigoberta Menchu" the autobiography of a Mayan woman during the conflict. It is all there.

The third conquest, as it is called, is the invasion of Nicaragua by the evangelicals. So, since the Spanish conquest, Nica has become a Catholic country. When I grew up, Catholics were considered to be Christians, so were Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists and so on. Today, by some voodoo all these more or less traditional faiths are considered by the new christians to be pagan statue worshipers, not 'saved', leading people to hell on the fast track. The new christians have to be 'saved', they have to think the poor are lazy and stupid and being punished by God. Everything will be great if the reject their beliefs and get baptized in water and talk the social and political line of the Tea Party.

Anyone who tries to educate or help the poor is probably a socialist, an Antichrist. Here in Granada, the wicked Cathedral has a resurrected Christ on the central altar. The traditional Christ on the cross is off to the side. I love this. When I was a kid, staring at the sad and pained body of Christ was a hard deal. I had to look for statues of the Virgin for mental peace. The new Pope is making noises about God wanting the poor to have a shot at life. Here, Liberation Theology was alive and well during the troubles.

!5 years ago I thought this invasion was trouble. Ignorant but loud preachers from Texas were having the Mayans burn their traditional traje. It was a sign of paganism. They were having screaming protests against the Semana Santa processions in Antigua Guatemala. Jesus hates that Catholic shit. But now the rampant ignorance of the Tea Party is adding insult to injury. These American preachers don't know their own history and they certainly don't know the history of Nica. But the power of the threats and promises they make can penetrate deeply in a poor population looking for hope and afraid of the big guns from the north.


I feel very out of step. Even though this whole momentum feels like it is moving back to the 1500s, with a not so different justification, I think I am the dinosaur here. I have this seemingly dumb belief that people are equal in the eyes of God. I believe that love is stronger than guns. I want to learn from other traditions who lived a very long time before destroying the environment and much of the world.

One Thing About Noam Chomsky

He is so smart. We all know that. The thing is he is a free thinker. By this I men that he is not connected to any 'ism'. As long as I've known of him, ever since I audited his courses at MIT, ever since I  met him and went to his talks, people have been trying to pigeon hole him into being what their passion is. Be a Socialist. Be a Marxist. Be pro Israel. Endorse our cause.

Brilliantly, he has refrained from doing so. My Buddhist teacher says that as soon as you put yourself into any box or label, you are no longer free. It makes perfect sense that a box contains you. My guess is that most thinking people wish to be free and at the same time, many wish to belong to something. I am not saying that one should not be passionate about things or not be an activist, I am trying to take the example from Chomsky and be free.

He also teaches that everyone should evaluate information themselves. He finishes off the notion of pundits giving their slant on what is happening. It turns events into black and white polarities, stopping action and stopping common sense. Before all the access to news that we have today, he was putting down the complaint that we had no access to info. He mentioned in particular that observations abut the placement of an article in a paper such as the New York Times could tell a reader as much as the article itself. If a military take over in Honduras was a little article on page three, well someone big was happening that important people didn't want us to notice.

At one talk of his I heard at Hampshire College, the students were frustrated by the fact that he wouldn't tell them what to think. He was teaching us how to think better, how to go from the particular to the big picture.

Here is a leap of the sort my mind loves to make: In many of the historic religions (not the fundamentalist factions) people are seeking out something that might be called "The Direct Approach". We don't want the priest or the minister or the rabbi to tell us what to think. As Waldo Emerson described in the 1800s in The Divinity School Address, we want our own experience. We want to be free to know and relate to our own spirituality.

Letting others tell us how to fell or what to think is highly dangerous and really limiting. I drew a lot of wrath when I voted for Obama in his first election but voiced big hesitations. He was clear in his campaign that he liked the war in Afghanistan. I did not. Then various liberal friends didn't like the fact that I was not all in for everything he did. I was not. It became obvious right away that he was under the sway of big banks, big pharma, big agriculture, big military. I was signaled out as a malcontent and it was true. I am anti war. After Obama became the drone president, I was fully disenchanted. I voted for Jill Stein in the second election.

Trying to be a free thinker has its own traps. But this is where good old fashioned intuition helps a lot. It is the best tool in our toolbox. Think about it. Does something feel right? Are your personal alarm bells going off? If so, it is time to be more awake and pay attention. When I listen to Chomsky talk, I think of his brilliance but I also think of him as having an intuition which leads him to the truth. Why else would we have that capacity?

Go to Chomsky's website and watch a random video and see what you think.